Tubman Beats Jackson on the $20 Bill

The seventh president disliked paper money. Put him on Bitcoin.

For a conservative allergic to political correctness, there couldn’t be a worse time to make the case for
Harriet Tubman
on the $20 bill. Recall that the Obama administration backed a new note to replace Andrew Jackson’s visage with Tubman’s. Asked about the idea last month, Treasury Secretary
Steven Mnuchin
was lukewarm. “People have been on the bills for a long period of time,” he said. “Right now, we’ve got a lot more important issues to focus on.”

Leftists are already waging total war against the villains of history. They won’t be happy until babies are no longer named David after the Israelite king—who, in addition to killing Goliath, also committed adultery and second-degree murder. But one hates to make the case of Jackson vs. Tubman about political correctness, so let’s make it partisan:

Andrew Jackson? It is hard to find a more colorful American life in any age. A survivor of battles, duels and an assassination attempt, he disdained Congress and the courts, much like Mr. Trump and Mr. Obama. He beat the British on the field in a war that was basically a draw. He held slaves and created the Trail of Tears. Like most anti-abolitionists, he was a Democrat, although unlike them he invented the party. Jackson was a foe of the Electoral College, which has served Republicans so well recently.

Harriet Tubman? She was one of the most self-reliant and heroic women in American history. Born in 1820 into slavery in Maryland, she went on to work for the Union Army, first as a cook and nurse, then as a scout and spy. She carried a gun while raiding plantations, and were she around today you can bet she’d be a member of the National Rifle Association. She was a Republican who fled from the Democratic slave state of her birth.

Jackson’s current image on the $20 bill is rather dramatic, showing his flowing mane. Tubman, who stood just above 5 feet, doesn’t have the same physical glamour. She was beaten from a young age and was hit in the head by a metal weight thrown at another slave—an injury that caused her seizures and headaches her entire life. In a country obsessed with superficial beauty, what a fabulous respite to feature someone whose notoriety is based on her accomplishments and character.

I have been carrying a faux Harriet Tubman $20 bill in my wallet for the past two years while awaiting the real deal. I printed a bunch of them at home to give as storytelling props during our Passover Seder. The point was to highlight, with great pride, the various ways the Passover story has been culturally expropriated by everything from the American founding and the Civil War to the 1960s civil-rights marchers and the Russian refusenik movement.

Few are a better fit for Passover than Harriet Tubman, whose nickname in the Underground Railroad was Moses. She alone guided several hundred slaves to freedom. What better emblem for the $20 bill than a woman who threw off the yoke of oppression and took it upon herself to fight for others?

With his hatred of a national bank and disdain for paper money, Jackson would be the perfect icon for the virtual currency Bitcoin. Tubman deserves to be on the $20 bill.